You can’t steal a Cossack’s soul

You can’t steal a Cossack’s soul

Please come downstairs with me through the decades, into a mildewed American basement where hardly anybody goes. The pool table’s cover could use a dusting; ping-pong finds no takers; the fallout shelter now stores tax returns and cleaning supplies; but cheer up: in case dead souls should resume their favourite game, the chessboard remains set for war! Beneath an incandescent light bulb whose yellowish flickers emulate atomic flashes, toy soldie…